A Sign Of The Times: Feeding Programs Struggle To Stock Shelves

At Boca Helping Hands soup kitchen, crowds had the staff almost begging for food to stock their shelves this summer.

In Broward County, a deluge of hungry mouths forced the Cooperative Feeding Program to turn people away for the first time in two decades.

It's a sign of bad economic times, economic experts and soup kitchen organizers say. Already reeling from dwindling donations of money and food since Sept. 11, soup kitchens are now struggling to meet a rapidly growing demand. Boca Helping Hands served 40 percent more meals this August than it did a year ago. In August 2002, the group provided 1,252 meals. A year ago, it was 896 meals.

By this time last year, the Cooperative Feeding Program had served a half-million meals at its Fort Lauderdale soup kitchen and Lauderdale Lakes food pantry. This year, the number has spiked to more than 1.13 million meals -- a 126 percent increase.

"It's a crisis," said Marti Forman, who runs the Cooperative Feeding Program that aids food pantries in Broward County. "We've been in a panic since Sept. 11 of last year and really have had no relief."

Experts and soup kitchen officials also fear that the worst is yet to come. The public's need for free meals could grow yet again -- especially if the economy starts to improve. The reason: As an economic recovery begins, many people already have depleted their savings. That leaves them even more dependent on social services often even as the economy rebounds from recession, said Dave Denslow, a University of Florida economics professor.

"You have more households that have not held jobs for quite a while, and they've run up [debt] on credit cards, they've imposed on their relatives, they've done everything they can," Denslow said. "They've run out of alternatives and start turning to public resources or declaring bankruptcy or defaulting on their debts."

For now, those who run soup kitchens are trying to remain optimistic and praying for the generosity of others. At the Caring Kitchen in Delray Beach, organizers expect to break their budget in order to keep serving meals. Its average crowd has grown from 150 lunchtime meals to between 180 and 200, an increase of at least 20 percent.

"We may just very well go in the red this year," said Juanita Bryant, program coordinator for Christians Reaching Out to Society, which operates the Caring Kitchen and several emergency food pantries in Palm Beach County.

"We're still serving the need because ... we know God will provide. Somehow, some way, the funding will come," she said.

Herb Geuder, 51, started going to Boca Helping Hands about three months ago. The unemployed day laborer was heading to Starbucks to fill out a job application and seeking something to drink when he came upon the small soup kitchen housed in a stout white building next to Friendship Missionary Baptist Church.

Geuder is still looking for work, and relying on the soup kitchen for hot meals. When he's there, he tries to help by taking out garbage and doing other odd jobs.

"Anything I can do, because they should be paid back something for their efforts," he said.

Many who now have become the soup kitchen's regulars are living paycheck to paycheck. Joanne Szaja, administrator for Boca Helping Hands, said the slightest unexpected expense could send them into a financial tailspin.

"They get $100 a week. Their bills are about $98," Szaja said. "The food is the last thing you buy. ... Some people have to choose between taking a pill and food."

Bryant said people are "not getting the jobs they'd normally get ... as well as people who had more steady income are being laid off."

"If people don't come [on vacation], and the snowbirds don't come, that directly affects the people we're serving," she said. "The employers, if they don't have the demand, they don't have the money to pay them. That just puts a greater demand on our services."

And some think that soup kitchens' and food pantries' current struggles are only a taste of what lies ahead.

"Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, what I call the first wave of victims ... are the ones showing up at these soup kitchens," said Jerry Kolo, director of Florida Atlantic University's Center for Urban Redevelopment and Empowerment.

"We will see a lot of what I call economic casualties."

Staff Writers Jodie Needle and Sam Tranum contributed to this report.

Kathy Bushouse can be reached at kbushouse@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6641.